Jack Hardy was madly in love with Grace Cortland. Moreover, he had always thought that he stood a very fair chance indeed of marrying Grace, until a certain Mr. Passay appeared on the scene. Grace herself did not care a bit about Mr. Passay and did care for Jack. Her mother, however, thought that Mr. Passay was an eminently suitable person. In the first place, he had money. So Jack’s suit grew more and more unpromising, and the young man’s face gradually acquired a mournful and unnatural appearance. At length affairs became so desperate that even the manicure girl in the great hotel noticed it. The whole business started when word came to the manicure girl that Miss Cortland wanted her to come upstairs. The manicure girl was doing Jack’s hands at the time, and was rather surprised when the sorrowful young gentleman begged her to take a note to Miss Cortland. However, she willingly consented, and just as willingly brought Jack Miss Cortland’s answer. Then, because there was no use doing anything else. Jack told the manicure all his troubles, and she promised to help him partly because she hated Mr. Passay, who bothered her with frequent invitations to dinner, and partly because she liked Jack’s eyes. It was really ridiculously easy to get Jack out of his predicament, granted that a girl was willing to put herself in a somewhat questionable situation. It is hardly probable that many girls would have taken the trouble, particularly when they knew that they couldn’t possibly take any reward except a few words of thanks. But the manicure girl was not an ordinary girl by any manner of means. She accepted one of Mr. Passay’s numerous invitations to supper in a restaurant, and saw to it that he was seated with his back toward a table, to which, by a prearranged plot, Jack brought Grace and her mother. Mr. Passav, who according to his custom had looked upon the wine when it was sparkling, began also according to his custom to make love to his pretty guest. His pretty guest, conscious that the eyes of Mrs. Cortland were fastened on the luckless Passay, lured him on. At last he kissed her. The manicure girl slapped him, and swept majestically out of the dining-room, leaving Passay to explain things to the frigid Mrs. Cortland.